


Ladybug Effect

by JustRosey



Series: Wish You Were Here [2]
Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, ROSE DOES NOT DIE IN THIS, Rose being a mom, Ugh, be prepared, couldn't cope with my own fic, kiddo fic, slight homophobia sometimes, the promised different ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-05-31 17:18:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15124205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustRosey/pseuds/JustRosey
Summary: I promised to post the "make-up" fic for December 5th, 5:54PM, that I originally wrote as a birthday gift for Belle, so here it is!As expected, Rose doesn't die in this.You're welcome, and no, I couldn't deal with it either...Please know, she's still sick in the beginning of this!The rest is so fluffy, it is plain ridiculous sometimes!I needed to pack all the fluff into this, after all the heartbreak that was produced before.Hope you enjoy!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [only_freakin_donuts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_freakin_donuts/gifts).



[February]

“Hi babe,” Luisa whispers through a soft kiss to Rose’s forehead. She still feels warm; the fever didn’t go down over night as they hoped it would. “Wake up sleepyhead, you’ve got visitors!”  
Gently she eases Mia down on Rose’s chest and sits down beside her on the bed, stroking her fingers over a pale cheek, interrupted by the tube of the cannula that’s still helping Rose breathe steadily at night.

The last two months had been hard; two stem cell transplants, more chemo, lots of blood transfusions. Around Christmas, Rose had started to get a little better, and it had looked like they’d be able to spend the holiday at home. But what had started with another fever on the 22nd, quickly turned out to be a nasty infection, and Luisa spent the 25th waiting for Rose to come out of surgery.  
January hadn’t been much better either; more fevers, more chemo, more bugs.

One bug managed to cheer Rose up every single time though; even her doctor admitted, it seemed to have a positive effect on Rose’s condition, if she was allowed to see Mia. Her heartbeat calmed, and her breathing got better, whenever Luisa put their baby girl on her sick mom’s chest. Luisa lovingly calls it the “Ladybug effect”.  
Only last week, Dr. Jandl had brought some hopeful news, concerning the results of the latest blood tests. Rose’s body seemed to be slowly responding to treatment and her white counts and platelets had increased a little again; for the first time really, since she had been diagnosed last year.

Luisa’s train of thought is interrupted by three month old Mia’s excited squeak, when she manages to grab the tube coming from Rose’s port, but before she’s able to pull, Luisa interferes with her plans.  
“Mia! Sorry, but that’s not something for you to play with, bug,” she explains to her little daughter who’s back on her own lap now.  
“That’s what they call natural curiosity, I suppose,” a hoarse voice makes Luisa look up again and smile.  
“Hey you… Happy Birthday, babe!” Luisa smiles brightly and bends her head down, pressing the softest of kisses to her love’s chapped lips. “Happy Birthday… I love you… “  
“Thank you, darling, I love you too,” Rose responds after stealing another, this time more forceful and deep kiss (yes, she had been practically shackled to this bed for about two months already and she might be running a fever again, but if Rose still couldn’t deal with one thing, it was Luisa giving her those overprotective kisses, as if one could break under the pressure of loving lips).

“Alright, present time!” Luisa laughs and plops their baby down on Rose’s chest again. “All dressed up for you and you alone,” she adds and adjusts the pillow for Rose who slowly sits up a little straighter now, and lifts her smiling baby with a huge orange bow on her head off the blanket, to have a critical look at her. “Luisa, honey, I usually love your choice of outfit but… why in the world orange? It doesn’t even look good on our ladybug and she’s the most beautiful baby girl in the whole world, isn’t she?”  
Rose can’t help but grin at Mia, who clearly enjoys being lifted up and down repeatedly; her wide, sparkling eyes and excessive drooling leave no doubt about it.  
“Can’t help that orange is the official colour for leukemia, and I also can’t help you were born just one day before Cancer Awareness Day. Your doctor immediately guessed right, when she saw Mia’s bow, by the way,” Luisa giggles and leans in for another kiss.  
“Probably because she also knows you’ve got taste and therefore would never dress our daughter in that horrible colour deliberately,” Rose whispers into the kiss.

“Okay, you know what your second present will be?” Luisa declares, leaning back again.  
“No, tell me,” Rose smiles, focusing her attention back on Mia, rocking her on her knees now; her arms presently feel like pudding from lifting her up and down.  
“Ointment. For your lips. They feel like sandpaper, Ro,” Luisa mocks and grabs her fiancee’s chin to dab the cream on her lips.  
“Can you not behave like a child whenever I do this?” she laughs at Rose who tries to twist her head away, eyes and lips tightly shut.  
“That’s not a present! That’s betrayal… you better make up for that,” Rose squeals through shut lips and pouts at Luisa after she’s done.  
“I promise, I will do anything to make up for it,” the brunette winks and strokes over her love’s head, before giving her another kiss. “But I have to say, this does feel so much better again now. Ready for some real presents now?”

[April]

“Rose, you’re in remission!”  
Rose sleepily hugs a peacefully slumbering Mia a little tighter to her chest. She had just woken up herself; hell, she is still tired; couldn’t they just wait until she had recovered from the treatments this morning? She feels someone grabbing her hand, squeezing it, harder and harder.  
Luisa. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed; Rose remembers her sitting there, stroking her head after they’d wheeled her back into her room earlier, when she had just been tired and aching and only semi-conscious. She must have fallen asleep afterwards.  
“Does that… Are you saying she… “ Luisa’s voice breaks, she presses her free hand in front of her mouth and Rose tries to recall what the exact word Dr. Jandl had said before was.  
Why is Luisa crying, what is happening?  
She blinks a few times. Luisa is still crying. She has let go of Rose’s hand and the doctor gives her a hug. Suddenly, there’s another hand on her; on her right shoulder this time. Rose jerks back a little. All that touching without being warned. Another thing she despises about hospitals.  
When she turns her head, there’s Chris’ smiling face blocking out the April afternoon sun shining in from the window behind him. Rose squints, trying to determine, if his smile is more a “I am so sorry gorgeous, but I am giving you a brave smile to make you feel better” smile, or actually just an ordinary, genuinely happy one.  
After analytically staring at him for a probably too long time, she gives up and turns her head back to Luisa.  
And then there’s lips on hers. Without warning. Again. What is going on?  
“She’s still pretty loopy from the medication, we should go easy on her now,” Dr. Jandl smiles, standing at the end of the bed.

Rose shoots awake again by the feeling of a hand on her chest, instead of Mia’s comfortable, warm body.  
“Shh, you’re okay, my dear,” that nurse calms her. Mary… or Martha, she would never remember her name, she doesn’t want to remember actually. She only ever sees this woman, when she is tired, or in pain, or both and therefore being put on meds. “I’m just putting you on pain relievers; it was a great day, but an exhausting one for your body.”  
Yeah, sure there she goes; always here to put (Sin)Rose(Tro) on drugs.  
“Where… Lu?”  
Wow, in her head she had that question mapped out grammatically correct; didn’t come out quite the way she wanted it to.  
“She’s just outside, talking to your doctor. I’ll tell her you’re awake,” the nurse smiles and heads for the door.  
Margaret. Rose is almost sure her name is Margaret.

“Hi babe,” Luisa whispers and carefully sits down on the bed beside Rose. “Mary told me you were asking for me?”  
Damn it, Mary after all.  
Still thinking about that name, Rose reponds a little (more like a lot) too late to the kiss Luisa presses on her lips. She can feel Luisa giggle and break away.  
Ah, come on! How is this supposed to be a good day?  
“Rose, you should sleep. You’re gonna feel better tomorrow. Then we can celebrate this properly!” Luisa tells her and gently peppers random kisses all over Rose’s face, who scrunches her nose up in response.  
Eyes already falling shut, Rose finds Luisa’s hand on the blanket and squeezes it, before she drifts off to sleep; still not entirely sure what is going on.

-

“So she is really entirely cancer-free?” Luisa asks for probably the tenth time this morning.  
“Yes, her scans are clear, her counts are on an okay level, and we couldn’t detect any cancerous cells in her blood, marrow or spine anymore,” Dr Jandl answers with a warm smile and turns to look at Rose again. “Yet, we gotta be careful still. Rose, you’re finally in remission, and we want you to stay that way! One more cycle of chemo and a few weeks of intensive supervision. We can’t risk you slipping back into recurrence unnoticed. If it should happen anyways, we have to act fast. It is most likely for you to relapse during the first few weeks, but you’ll only be considered completely cured after your cancer stays in remission over the course of the next five years,” she explains seriously, wanting to let them know that there is still a chance, Rose might not be healed after all.  
“A few weeks of close supervision here in hospital or… “ Rose asks hopefully, trying her best puppy eyes on Dr. Jandl.  
The doctor laughs and shakes her head. “Yes, for now you’re staying here! Woman, you’re still on strong medication, you can’t get up on your own; we have to pep you up a little before you’re ready to go home,” she explains and pats a pouting Rose’s shoulder.

 

[June]

Rose sighs, watching Mia crawl off towards the garden once again. Her little ladybug didn’t seem to understand that she couldn’t go out there with her just yet.  
Well, technically she could… but there’s so many things that could become a danger to a baby out there. Rose won’t risk being alone with her daughter in a potentially dangerous location… meaning even more dangerous than the living room already, but just sitting on the couch with her had apparently been too boring for the little girl, so she is being watched with eagle eyes now, as she crawls through the light-flooded room.  
Mia has made it over to the window and presses her chubby, little hands against the cool glass.  
“Mia bug, we have to wait for mama to come back home from shopping. You can play outside with her then,” Rose tries and grabs Mia off the floor beside the window.

She has been home for about a month now; they’d finally discharged her in late May, after she had shown no sign of a relapse and was considered strong enough to be sent home. Luisa and her had been bursting with excitement and happiness to finally get 24 hour “togetherness” again. Sleeping in her own bed felt more than great, having to take only about half the meds she used to even better (especially the fact that she didn’t have to get daily shots against blood clots in her upper arm anymore), and being home with her little family is the best thing anyways; but still, Rose kind of lacks behind those months she has missed seeing Mia grow up and progress.  
She still doesn’t immediately grasp the situation, when Mia cries for Luisa at night, and she is only just getting accustomed to looking after her seven and a half month-old daughter alone, who is getting better and faster at crawling every day and unpleasantly heavy to lift, (at least for Rose the post-cancer weakling) too.  
As happy as she is to be home; to be here to witness her daughter growing up; to have Luisa all to herself again, Rose’s gratitude can be largely diminished by things that do not yet work out the way she wants them to:  
As mentioned above, Mia is getting real heavy to carry for Rose; she has to plan her way around their (rather big) house still, so she comes across chairs, beds or couches to sit down for a moment and gather her strength again, since she’d prefer to not end up sitting on the floor in sudden exhaustion; she has to wear a mask when Chris comes to visit, or when they have to drive to the hospital for her weekly check ups and follow-up treatment; Luisa is still overprotective about everything and anything; and last but not least, her hair still hasn’t shown any sign of growing back.  
Luisa had laughed at her only last night, for whining that it would probably never grow back, and she would have to go back to wearing wigs. She had been told, to stop being dramatic, and remember that her last chemo was just a bit over a month ago.  
Last week, Rose had hopefully asked Dr. Jandl, when they were planning on removing her port and had just earned a smile of sympathy and been informed, they’d leave it in for at least another year, since it would be helpful should she pick up some bug due to her still recovering immune system.

Speaking of bugs; Mia squirms and wavers in frustration in her arms right now.  
“I said no, Mia. We can’t go out there; we have to wait for mama,” Rose responds, the same frustration in her voice, as in Mia’s brown eyes, when she looks up at her.  
Gosh, those eyes. Rose right away feels sorry for being harsh with her baby girl and presses a kiss into her dark hair.  
“Babes, I’m home!” Luisa shouts from the hallway and sparks the feeling of relief in her fiancee and excitement in her daughter. “Where is my little sunshine baby?” Luisa laughs, as she sees Mia excitedly kick her arms and legs up and down. “And where’s my other not that sunny looking girl?” she teases Rose, who shoves Mia in Luisa’s arms right away.  
“I’ll get the bags,” she informs her shortly and shuffles into the hallway.

-

“What’s wrong today?” Luisa carefully asks two hours later, as she sits on the red beach towel under the umbrella in their garden, gently massaging SPF 100 for sensitive skin into Rose’s shoulders.  
“Nothing,” Rose replies, and Luisa knows there’s no chance she’ll talk about it now. She continues rubbing sunscreen on Rose’s lower back and frowns at being able to count her ribs from just looking at her from this perspective.  
After wiping her hands on the towel, she places the bowl of strawberries in her lover's lap. “Eat. You didn’t finish your lunch and promised you’d have fruit for dessert with Mia later,” Luisa reminds her and presses a kiss into Rose’s still uncharacteristically freckle-less cheek. “It’s good you’re finally getting some sun and fresh air again now; I want those freckles back!” she smiles and lovingly pinches Rose’s cheek. She doesn’t get an answer; Rose just lazily plops a strawberry into her mouth and chews. “Alright, you stay here, grumpy. I’m gonna stop our daughter from eating whatever it is she just picked up!”  
In getting up, Luisa presses a quick smack on Rose’s bald head and sprints to Mia, who slowly raises a fist of dirt to her already agape mouth.  
In order to keep Mia from trying to stuff other things not qualified as food into her mouth, Luisa fills the little pink water gun and splashes Mia’s belly with it. The little girl giggles loudly, sitting in the grass opposite her mom. Splash splash, again and again, she wouldn’t get tired of this in hours.  
“Mia, shall we help your hot-tempered mommy to cool down a bit too? What do you say?” Mia just giggles and pats her hands on her naked baby tighs.  
Rose has curled herself up on the towel, baring her back as an easy target for Luisa, who approaches her silently, with Mia on her arm. She just splashes once, hitting Rose’s back at the waistline and making her jump. Within a second, Rose is on her feet and stares accusingly at Luisa holding the pink toy, and a giggling Mia on her hip.  
“Mia and I wanted to give you a little refresher,” Luisa explains with a smile.  
Rose just spins around and heads back to the house without another word.  
“Babe, it was just fun! Hey Rose, come back… “

-

Quietly, Luisa slips into their bedroom that evening, after putting Mia to sleep. Rose is lying in bed already, blanket up to her chin, clutching her pillow, eyes shut.  
“Hey… “ Luisa starts worriedly and sits down beside her. “Ro, are you not feeling well?” She wants to put a hand on her love’s forehead to feel for a temperature, but Rose turns away, nestling deeper into the pillows.  
“You gotta talk to me. Rose, if you’re not feeling okay, we have to do something,” Luisa reasons, and when she still doesn’t get an answer, she straddles Rose’s hips and turns her head to look at her. “Babe, you have to learn to talk to me. I’m your fiancee; we want to get married… I love you and I am worried about you! What’s going on? Please tell me!” She didn’t plan to start crying, it just happened. She’s still scared.  
“Don’t cry, I’m okay,” Rose eases now and sits up even, wrapping Luisa in a hug.  
“No! You’re not; something is bothering you. Rose, I know you!” Luisa sobs and puts her hands on Rose’s cheeks.  
“It’s just… I… I don’t know, I feel like Mia liked me better when she just saw me for a little while every other day in hospital. She used to smile more. Now she’s just frustrated with me and does anything but what I want her to do, and… she rarely smiles, except with you; she always smiles when she sees you. She doesn’t like it, when I’m alone with her and… it’s probably my fault because I’m bad at playing with her and-” Luisa interrupts her by cupping her face again with her hands.  
“Hey, hey stop. You’re doing great. Ro, you’ve been home for 29 days now; and everything’s still kinda new to you. Babe, what do you think how I felt the first few days alone at home with Mia? It is exhausting, it’s scary, it’s frustrating sometimes even - yes, but you get used to it and you learn from the mistakes you make, and at the end of the day you should think of the good stuff you’ve accomplished! And Mia loves you. She smiles so much at you, but you also get to deal with her crying and being grumpy now and that’s new to you.”  
“You’re counting the days since I got discharged?” Rose asks with a slowly forming smile, and leans in to kiss her love gently.  
“Of course I am?” Luisa laughs and wipes one last tear away.  
“I’m sorry. You were right; I’m the one who was grumpy today. I should’ve just told you it is a little… much still,“ she admits and hugs Luisa tighter.  
“I’m so proud of you. You’re becoming better and better at being a mom every day! Honestly Rose, I was so scared you wouldn’t beat cancer, but you did because you’re a though, tough cookie. And you being so good with Mia now is my second miracle!”

[July Fourth]

“It’s so fluffy! Your head feels like a baby duck, babe!” Luisa rumpels Rose’s head for the third time in the last ten minutes, though she knows it’s annoying her endlessly.  
“Would you just stop it now? Please? Or I’ll go get my beanie from upstair, and you won’t see my hair another time today,” Rose sniffles, laying side by side on the couch with Luisa, her head resting on the brunette’s shoulder.  
She had picked up a cold, from when they’d taken a walk on the beach with Mia three days ago and was currently enjoying being lovingly nursed back to health by Luisa.  
Enjoying everything, but Luisa’s fascination with her slowly growing back hair.  
“It’s not hair yet; it’s just fluff…” Luisa goes on, pressing a soft kiss into Rose’s… fluff. “It’s orange baby duck fluff.”  
“Alright, that’s it,” Rose scrambles to her feet and heads upstairs to get that beanie.  
“No, stay here!” Luisa whines, but knows she’s gone too far with it for Rose’s taste.  
They were staying up late tonight for the fireworks; the 4th of July had always been fireworks and kisses and … during those fireworks for them. They wouldn’t skip their favourite night for anything; certainly not because of a cold, and Luisa would even break her usual ‘no kisses on the lips while sick’ rule for the sake of the day. 

A few minutes later, Rose comes back into the living room, blue cashmere beanie on her head, a teary eyed Mia in her arms. “Look who’s awake again,” Rose whispers, trying to not be too loud around their upset, but still sleepy daughter.  
“Hi baby girl,” Luisa gives back in the same quiet voice, when Rose sits down awkwardly careful on the couch with her and strokes her messy head of curls.  
Mia rubs her eyes, starting to whimper again, until a coughing fit shakes her and makes her cry even more.  
“Looks like I have my personal sick girls club at home now,” Luisa sighs and rubs Mia’s back gently.  
“Did I make her sick?” Rose asks pitifully, before sneezing loudly into the sleeve of her bathrobe. Luisa hands Rose a kleenex, and wipes Mia’s small, snotty snub nose herself. “Looks like it… But don’t worry, I can deal with both of your sniffles and snores at night,” Luisa smiles and hugs Mia to her chest.  
“I don’t snore,” Rose protests and squeezes in beside Luisa again, stroking Mia’s head.  
“You do snore,” Luisa laughs and kisses Rose’s blushing cheek.  
She wouldn’t tell her about the video she had taken of her yesterday just yet. Luisa had woken up in the morning, finding Rose’s head resting on her chest, and her hand on Luisa’s boob. She had still smelled of the Wick Vaporub Luisa had her and Mia smothered in after showering, and additionally she had been snoring and sniffling in an interchangeable rhythm; that was, until Luisa’s giggles had woken her up.

Since Mia had woken up, and stayed downstairs with them, they couldn’t quite stick with their plans that night, but threesome cuddles on the couch, with thermometers and cough drops (just for Rose of course), weren’t that bad either.  
At midnight, they went out on veranda to watch the fireworks; all three covered by a thick blanket, Mia in Rose’s arms and Luisa cuddled into her other side, and they thought they wouldn’t want it any other way.

[a few days later]

Rose squeezes her eyes shut again, when they’re confronted with the too bright light in the Emergency room. She had spiked a fever. Mia too. Looks like it wasn’t just a cold as expected.  
When Rose’s fever hadn’t gone down, her coughs hadn’t stopped, and her head had hurt so much she could barely talk, Luisa had grabbed her and an equally poorly doing Mia, and taken them to the ER.  
Trying to get used to the lights, Rose squints and tries to make out Luisa and Mia. Her head feels a little better; the Tylenol they gave her is doing its job, but in return she feels pretty drowsy.  
Hearing Mia cry, Rose slowly turns her head to the other side, finding Luisa rocking Mia in her arms, while talking to Dr. Jandl.  
She can’t really hear the whole conversation because a noisy Mia combined with her own drowsiness and headache aren’t really helpful. Yet she is able to make out some words.  
“Mia… probably bronchitis… antibiotics… “  
Rose feels so sorry for their little girl; she is uncomfortable enough needing doctors herself, but knowing Mia needs a doctor is worse actually.  
“Counts… low… 100 percent... to make sure… biopsy… “  
A shiver creeps down Rose’s back; she can feel her heartbeat pace. She can’t see Luisa’s face, when Dr. Jandl puts a hand on her shoulder.

Mia cries out when Luisa puts her down on a bed, so the doctors can have a closer look at her, only making her scream even louder, even though her mom is holding her tiny hand.  
That’s when she panics.  
Rose doesn’t panic. At least she never did before. She isn’t even sure, if the reason is Mia being bugged by doctors and nurses, or if it’s the thought of her cancer having returned.  
There’s a high pitched noise piercing her ears.  
She squeezes her eyes shut; opens them again.  
“Rose.”  
Still too bright.  
The noise won’t go away.  
Her heart, with every beat, throbs painfully in her chest.  
She can’t breathe.  
Mia’s still crying.  
“Rose!”  
Opening her eyes, she sees her doctor hovering over her, shaking her by the shoulders.  
“Rose, breathe! You have to breathe.”  
Mia’s crying stops.  
Then Luisa’s face appears, and Rose’s lungs fill with the so much needed oxygen.

“Babe, hey… “ Luisa looks down concerned at Rose, who has managed to go as white as the duvet she’s lying on. The brunette keeps on stroking Mia’s head on her shoulder, as she sits down beside her still heaving love. “Calm down… You heard Mia cry, right?”  
Rose nods, coughing dreadfully.  
“She’s okay; she was just scared of the cold stethoscope,” Luisa smiles and kisses Mia on top of her head.  
Dr. Jandl feels Rose’s pulse for a few more seconds and nods contently, before getting up again and walking over to where she had been busy writing on Rose’s chart.

“C-can we go home now?” Rose stutters and pinches the bridge of her nose, to relieve the pain there; it used to hurt there all the time, when she had those headaches before they found out she had-  
“Rose, Dr. Jandl wants to keep you-”  
“No.”  
“Ro-”  
“No! I’m not staying here! I’m coming home with you and Mia! I will not stay here one more night-” Rose’s voice gives in and she starts to cry, making Luisa feel just as helpless, as in the few times this has happened before.  
“Rose, darling… it’s alright; your doctor has to keep you here as long as your fever doesn’t go down… it’s protocol… they’re gonna check you thoroughly and help you get better,“ Luisa tries to soothe, and her hand that’s been stroking Mia’s head, wanders to a tear stained, pale cheek.  
“I don’t want more chemo! I’m not going to go through with this again,” Rose sobs desperately, starting to suck in her breaths in a hurried way.  
“Goodness Rose, no! What are you talking about?”  
“I-I heard you talking; Dr. Jandl said my blood counts are low again, but to be 100 percent sure, I need a bone marrow biopsy; and that means relapse, right? That means my cancer is back-”  
“Okay, okay, stop!” Luisa puts a sleepy Mia down beside Rose. “Hug your daughter and breathe for a second.”  
Rose pulls Mia closer immediately, wraps her arms around their little girl’s warm body possessively and continues to silently cry; into Mia’s dark curls.

After having waved Dr. Jandl over to the bed her two biggest worries are currently lying in, Luisa makes Rose look up at her again. “So, listen; you misunderstood,” she starts, when the doctor steps beside the bed, looking worried again. “What Dr. Jandl actually said was that your counts are still okay but your low immunity makes you so infection prone, and that you’ll probably have some more bugs coming until your immune system is 100 percent again,” Luisa smiles at a confused, puffy eyed Rose.  
“Yes, and to make sure you’re responding to the antibiotics, and your bronchitis doesn’t turn into pneumonia, I’m admitting you. And then I told Luisa, I believe you’ll be able to go home after we do your biopsy on friday,” Dr. Jandl continues, smiling a little uneasily; she had never witnessed Rose like this.  
She had almost had exclusively bad news for Rose concerning her condition for more than half a year, damn, she had told this woman she barely had a chance to survive after her first stem cell transplant had gone wrong, but whenever she had brought those bad news, Rose had just… nodded.  
This is a completely new reaction; Rose Ruvelle; Ex-AML patient didn’t do scared; not ever until now at least.  
“You know what; maybe it would be good to keep Mia here for observation too… I could probably find a room for three, at least for tonight,” she suggests with a smile.  
A crying Rose seems to not just have a big impact on Luisa.  
“You’re honestly offering a hospital sleepover?” Luisa laughs and presses a big smooch first on Rose’s and then on Mia’s cheek.  
“Looks like I am,” the doctor laughs and gently squeezes Rose’s shoulder, who’s been deliberately avoiding to look at her for the last minute or so.

-

Three days later, Mia and Rose are home again; both still on antibiotics, but doing a lot better already.  
In order to not pass their cold on to Luisa, Rose is the one spending the most time with Mia right now; she takes her to bed and stays with her until she’s sleeping; she helps her swallow the medicine, rubs Wick Vaporub onto her chest, and basically cuddles with her on the couch 24 hours straight. The only time, she still shoved their daughter into Luisa’s arms was, when said baby girl’s diaper was bursting at the seams.  
Luisa had told her already, after she was well again, she’d have to learn doing it; also when it wasn’t just a pee pee nappy.

Right now, Luisa is sitting in the comfy chair opposite to her two favourite girls on the couch, who are both about to fall asleep. Rose’s hand, that is stroking their daughter’s hair, is slowing down continuously, and her own head is sinking deeper into the pillow, until her breathing tells Luisa she’s passed out too. She smiles and thinks about how much more confident Rose was handling Mia now; before this cold, she always needed Luisa’s reassurance to know she’s doing the right thing. Now she just tried things without asking first, and she’s doing a pretty good job actually.  
Yes well, she tends to be a little overprotective… nah, more possessive of Mia, but that’s honestly so much better than if she just wouldn’t feel anything for her.


	2. One year cancer-free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose is one year cancer-free! Yay!  
> Ahem, this is so much fluff - be warned!
> 
> I'll try to post either this fic, or Toying Somewhere Between Love and Abuse once a week from now on... wish me luck.

“Mia!”  
The little girl is stopped from grabbing stuff from the shelves for about the fifth time during the last four minutes.  
“Bwaah, this!,” is all Mia has to say to this, and Rose already regrets having agreed to Luisa’s request of taking her to the shopping center with her; their daughter was definitely getting too good at walking now, and additionally, this was the first time Rose went anywhere alone with her; it had been an exhausting year of recovery even after beating cancer, so taking Mia grocery shopping with her was kind of a big task to ask from her still.  
On the other hand, she would take Mia along on a trip through the Antarktis, if Luisa asked her to.  
Speaking of Luisa, or better, of her headache; that last, almost illegible scribble on the shopping list, that had been handed to Rose, might actually mean ibuprofen; but first milk, orange juice, bananas…

“Mia, no!”  
Rose notices too late, as her daughter grabs a pack of spaghetti and throws them to the floor within the blink of an eye. “You threw it down; now pick it up, please,” she demands hopefully, running her left hand through the thick mess of short, red curls on her head.  
Mia just looks at her innocently and smiles, showing off her cute baby teeth.  
“Mia no!” she blabbers happily, grinning at her mother.  
“It was worth a try… One day you’ll do it… “ Rose sighs, picks up the spaghetti first and then Mia. “But enough’s enough, ladybug. I’m sorry!”  
Mia starts crying immediately, when she’s being lifted into the child seat of the shopping cart, and manages to grab Rose’s glasses, pulling them off her mom’s face.  
“Mia!” Rose yells and catches the girl’s tan, chubby baby hand holding the glasses, before they’ll land on the floor as well.  
Shocked by her mom’s tone, Mia starts wailing louder, making a woman in front of them turn around.  
“Shhh, Mia,” Rose whispers gently and strokes the little girl’s cheek. “Please, I’m begging you! Stop!”  
Mia does stop. Only when Rose lifts her out of the seat again though.  
“Happy now?” Rose grumbles, when Mia holds onto her left pant leg and smiles, as if nothing’s ever happened. “Alright bug, let’s see what your mama wants us to buy… ”

“So we got everything, except the ibuprofen, which we’ll pick up at the pharmacy on our way out, and that one word that I cannot read for good,” Rose ponders, her forehead wrinkling, as she tries one last time to decipher Luisa’s horrible handwriting. “Well Mia, let’s just hope it’s not too important,” she shrugs, stuffs the piece of paper into her jacket pocket and looks to Mia…  
“Mia?”  
… to where Mia had just stood a second ago.  
“Mia!?”  
Rose spins around, her eyes frantically searching the rows of the sweets section.  
No Mia.  
She turns back to the spot where Mia had still stood a moment ago. She had looked at the colorful gummy bear packages with big eyes, and now, there’s no beautiful, dark-haired toddler there.  
Leaving the shopping cart behind, Rose half runs, half walks back to the fruit and veggie part of the shop.  
No Mia.  
She can’t really think of anything but ‘shit’, ‘shit’, ‘Luisa is going to kill me’, ‘shit’ anymore until another, most horrible thought crosses her mind.  
Kidnapped. Her beautiful, beautiful baby had been kidnapped; bugnapped; ladybugnapped.  
Shit.  
“MIA!”  
Trying not to panic (even more), hyperventilate, or (even worse) cry, Rose takes off her glasses, rubs her eyes; then her temples. She should go back to where she last saw her.  
Rose walks back quickly to where she left the cart, combing her fingers through her curls all along the way.  
When she finds the cart, still deserted, the room starts spinning.

“Baby girl, I think someone’s looking for you,” a friendly voice makes Rose turn around. Behind her, there’s an old lady, holding the hand of a chubby, tan toddler.  
“Mia,” Rose sighs, sinks down on her knees and wraps her arms around her obviously unharmed daughter, who’s holding a huge Snickers bar in her little hand and whispers a very quiet ‘mommy’ into her ear now.  
“Looks like you nearly gave your daddy a heart attack, little one!” the old woman smiles, and Rose perplexedly opens her eyes.  
Daddy?!  
Ah, fuck you, cancer.  
She gets up with Mia on her arm, and swallows the comment she has in mind (“Ever considered glasses, ma’am?”).  
“Thank you so, so much! I just… I didn’t look for a second and-”  
“It’s alright! Your little one was just behind that counter, pulling chocolate bars from the shelf,” the old lady tells Rose and shakes her hand. “Maybe next time, you should try putting her into the seat; it’s easier to keep an eye on daddy’s quick little girl then,” she winks and slowly shuffles away from where Rose is still frozen in place with Mia in her arms.

-

“She called me ‘daddy’!” Rose complains, sitting on the edge of their bed. “Twice!”  
She had just confessed to Luisa, what had happened less than an hour ago.  
“Shhh… Goodness Rose, can you please lower your voice?” Luisa wheezes, rubbing her temples.

“I don’t look like a guy, do I?” Rose inquiries in a whisper now and gently kisses her love’s forehead.  
“Would I still want to kiss you so bad if you did?” Luisa whispers back and runs her hand through Rose’s head of curls, before connecting their lips. “But babe, it was just an old, most likely half blind lady; she probably saw your short hair and that you’re tall.”  
“I hate my hair,” Rose grumbles, but Luisa shushes her right away; Rose’s hair had been a topic, they’d discussed far too many times this past year.

While Luisa couldn’t adore it any more than she did, Rose couldn’t remember a time, she had been any more annoyed with her wild curls.  
Her hair was, and this is not a sentence coming from Luisa, as you might think, ‘the most stubborn part of her body’.

[Last Halloween, it had just grown back enough to start curling viciously, and Rose herself had been spending the 31st of October mostly on the couch with a cold, packs of medicine scattered around her, and Luisa with many colorful hair bobbles behind her.  
She claimed, she must’ve been delirious because of the fever, when she had agreed to Luisa’s suggestion of continuing their Halloween dress-up tradition, and dress her up as “that snake-haired, Greek witch” (Luisa’s wording).  
Rose had first caught a glimpse of her horrible Medusa costume, when she had had to open the door for Chris and his boyfriend, and seen herself in the hallway mirror.  
She had complained to Luisa about making her look ridiculous all afternoon, until she had fallen asleep, with her surgical mask on, and a head full of weird, tiny, red braids resting on Luisa’s shoulder.]

“I have to admit though,” Luisa continues, when Rose gets up from beside her, “those pants still don’t fit you 100 percent, and they make your ass look like a guy’s,” she teases, slapping her hand on Rose’s above mentioned body part.  
“Hey daddy… “ Luisa purrs, when Rose turns back around to her, eyes visibly darker than before, and is back on the bed in no time. The redhead crashes their lips together in a heated kiss swinging her leg over Luisa’s waist.

“Maaaaaama!”  
Luisa hisses at Mia’s shrill voice, and Rose can’t help but roll her eyes.  
“That was not her usual one hour nap,” she sighs and gets up from the bed again.  
“I’ll get her,” Luisa says and also gets up. “Babe, could you just get me an ibuprofen, please? My head feels like it’s bursting,” she winces.  
“ … “  
“Rose?”  
“ … “  
“Please don’t tell me you forget about the ibuprofen?” Luisa sighs and slumps back down on the bed again.  
“I thought our daughter had been kidnapped!”

-

“Babe,” Luisa whispers a few hours and a fortunately left-over ibuprofen later, gently combing her fingers through thick, red curls. “Ro, wake up.”  
Rose stirs in response to the movement on her scalp, but makes no sign of opening her eyes.  
“Rose, come on, even Mia is up from her second nap already,” Luisa adds and grins, when Rose finally blinks her eyes open.

Throughout this whole first year, being up for three hours in a row had been exhausting for Rose already, so she ended up napping almost as much as their baby daughter.  
The focus had primarily been on her gaining weight, staying away from ill people, and generally finding her strength again. They’d had zero time to plan a wedding, so they had agreed on waiting until Rose actually felt ready for it, and strong enough too, because her having to take naps on their big day wouldn’t be ideal.

“We gotta go now, if we want to be on time still,” Luisa whispers gently into her love’s ear. Rose finally sits up, yawns, and slumps against Luisa’s shoulder, seemingly still exhausted from her early morning, shocking shopping trip with Mia.  
Luisa smiles and hugs her tightly, her hand wandering to Rose’s head again.  
She really can’t get enough of those curls.  
“Okay…” Rose starts, still sounding sleepy. “Let’s go and celebrate me having beaten cancer’s ass one year ago.”

-

“Alright, all done!” Dr. Jandl beams at the little family gathered in front of her in one of the examination rooms. “Everything looks really well, and we’ll have the rest of your results by tomorrow.”  
She was actually happy with Rose’s condition by now; she hadn’t picked up any infection in months, seemed to have plenty of energy… at least here and now, because Luisa did mention, she had had a two hour nap before coming here, and all the tests that’d been done had come back with positive results, except for her in depth blood analysis, that would be finished by the next morning.  
Additionally, Rose seemed happier than ever, rocking her little daughter on her knees, not listening to the doctor but singing some nursery rhyme to her, while Luisa sucked up all the information about her fiancee’s condition instead.  
“I’ll call you tomorrow, once I get the results. Congratulations on being one year cancer free, Rose,” she smiles, and Rose stops entertaining Mia for a moment to smile back at her and thank her.

-

“So, what do I get?” Rose asks, picking Mia up to keep her from running out on the street, when they leave the hospital and walk back to their car.  
“What do you get for what?” Luisa asks puzzled, but smiles.  
“What do I get for being awesome and having scared cancer away permanently?” Rose grins, and grabs Mia’s little hand that had started to poke interestedly at her mommie’s port; which she’d get out soon; finally.  
“I’ll get you some Powdered Sugar Donuts at the next vending machine, you hero,” Luisa winks and helps her fiancee buckle their daughter in her car seat.  
“That would only be disappointing, if I didn’t actually like those, Luisa!”  
“And I meant what I said, I’ll buy you donuts!” Luisa reinforces, before pressing a big smooch on Rose’s cheek and ruffling her hair.

Turns out Luisa decides to go for the slightly more ‘elegant’ kind of donuts, when she parks their car in front of a fancy-looking cafe.  
“The Salty Donut?” Rose asks, turning around to Mia and scrunching her nose up. “We don’t like salty donuts, do we, Mia?”  
Mia starts to giggle and yells a long “Nooooo!” as an answer.  
“It’s one of the best donut places in Miami apparently, so you two just thank me for buying you overpriced sugar bombs, yeah?”

-

“Never… in my whole life…” Rose manages to get out while chewing on some fancy glazed donut filled with passion fruit something.  
She had additionally stolen almost half of Luisa’s pistachio donut, and was on her second cup of coffee.  
Luisa couldn’t be happier to see Rose stuff herself with calories; she really needed them. She still looked a little… lost in most her clothes.  
“ … have you had such a delicious donut? That’s because you haven’t had any other donuts than the vending machine ones in forever, babe,” Luisa laughs and wipes chocolate off Mia’s equally satisfied face.  
Their girl had been too blown away by all the different, colorful treats, to actually pick one for herself, so they had ordered her a simple chocolate one. Rose had let her try a small bite of hers, but Mia hadn’t looked too amazed, expecting it to taste less like fruit, but, well, more like chocolate as well.

“Mia pee pee!” she blurts out now, making big eyes.  
She had recently started asking for the toilet at home, but was still wearing a diaper whenever they went anywhere; she was rather early, being only one and a half years old.  
“You’ve got your diaper on, preciosa, don’t worry,” Luisa calms her, but gets up anyways.  
“Let me take her,” Rose stops her and gets up instead, lifts Mia out of the highchair she was sitting in, and grabs the changing bag, just in case. “Can you make it to the toilet, Mia?”  
The little girl nods, clutching to Rose, who walks towards the toilets with her.

“Oh oh…” Mia whispers guiltily, just when Rose pushes the door open.  
“It’s okay, bug,” she calms her, pressing a quick kiss to her hair and walking over to the changing tables with her instead.

Another woman is just changing her baby boy there, and Rose mutters a quick hello, before putting Mia down and pulling her cute, little jeans with the rainbows on them off her daughter’s legs.  
“Awww, such a pretty girl,” the blonde woman beside Rose coos, waving at Mia, who, true to character, waves back with a big smile. “How old is she?”  
“She’s 18 months old,” Rose answers politely, trying not to roll her eyes at the strange woman admiring Mia.  
She wouldn’t return the compliment or the question, since a) she didn’t think that baby boy of hers was cute; Rose only considered Mia a cute baby generally, and b) she really wasn’t interested in how old some strange kid was, who she’d most likely never see again.  
“My little David has just turned one last week,” the woman continues anyways, sealing David’s diaper shut.

“Congratulations then,” Rose finally answers after an awkward pause, more focused on trying to brush a stray, tickling curl away from her forehead with the back of her hand.  
She still hadn’t figured out how to talk to other moms… except having kids, none of them had anything in common, and kids were not enough a commonality to start a conversation about, in Rose’s opinion.  
“I love your hair, by the way,” the woman goes on, trying to push her son’s jerking legs back into his green jumper. “I feel like there’s not nearly enough women rocking short hair styles out there!”  
Rose grabs the wet wipes and a fresh diaper from the bag and looks at the woman for a second.  
“Yeah, I had cancer, so it wasn’t really a voluntary decision,” she explains lightly, not noticing the woman’s shocked face.

“Oh god, I-I'm so sorry! I didn’t know -“ she stumbles, her hand covering her mouth.  
“It’s fine,” Rose calms her, flashing her an actual smile. “I had cancer - past tense. All good now!”  
“Mommy no sick,” Mia beams, eager to join in on any conversation she could lately, and making Rose feel sick with pride, forming a three-word-sentence.  
“Yeah, thank god your mommy is well now,” the blonde woman replies emphatically to Mia.  
Rose actually rolls her eyes and stuffs one of Mia’s tiny, tan legs back into her jeans.  
Their skins contrasted so much now in Summer, it just wasn’t fair.  
“Your daddy must be one really handsome and tan man, right baby girl?” the chatty blonde woman coos again, and Rose is suddenly amused by the conversation.  
“There’s no daddy,” Rose corrects her and can’t help but take in the woman’s aghast face. She honestly looks like she’s about to cry over that poor little girl and her mommy, who’s had cancer and probably lost her husband.

“But her other mama sure got a great tan game going on, right Mia?” she grins, deciding to undeceive that woman of her obvious suspicion, while buttoning her daughter’s jeans again and helping her in her shoes.  
“Have a nice day,” Rose chirps, leaving the blonde woman standing by the changing tables with her mouth still hanging slightly open.

“Why are you grinning so hard?” Luisa asks suspiciously, when Rose comes back to the table with Mia on her arm.  
“I had my hair complimented,” Rose chuckles, sitting down with Mia in her lap now, “and Mia is just the prettiest baby in the whole world, aren't you, ladybug?”  
She nudges her own nose against Mia’s tiny one, making her laugh and put both her dainty, little hands on her mom’s freckled cheeks.  
“ … you’re not lying, but also not telling me everything, are you?” Luisa asks suspiciously, knowing her fiancee far too well.  
Rose only grins, her eyes following the blonde woman glancing over at their table, while leaving the café with a man carrying their baby son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It'd mean the wooooorld to me, if you told me what you think about it!
> 
> Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next chapter!


	3. Two years cancer-free (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is part one of the Two Years Cancer-Free chapter... because this chapter got looooong.
> 
> Imagine a huge ball of cotton candy you're falling into, after craving cotton candy all day and additionally feeling very hungry. This equates about how much fluff and happiness I packed into this chapter.
> 
> Also, insert the stereotypical wedding "tam tata tam" sound right at the beginning!  
> ;P
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Luisa smiles happily, watching Rose in her beautiful, white pantsuit, chasing their little flower girl in the mini version of the white dress, she herself is wearing.  
She looks down at her hand; their rings had been with them for two and a half years already; they had been with them through their hardest of times; but today they had finally got their official meaning; Rose is her wife now.

Rose, Luisa, and Mia Alver. They are a real family now.

She looks back to her beautiful wife, whose hair is shoulder long again (she had it cut a few times to make it grow back strong), as she catches their equally beautiful, little daughter and spins her through the air, making her squeal in excitement.  
“Mama, come!” Mia yells for her with a smile on her face. Luisa follows that request, and walks over to Rose, who still holds their girl in her arms.

“Hi,” the redhead smirks, and Luisa stands on her tiptoes to reach those amazing, pink lips. Mia squirms between them during their kiss, but when her moms don’t seem to stop any time soon, she throws her head back too and presses a wet kiss to the underside of Rose’s jaw, making her giggle and break away from Luisa.  
“Hey bug, you want kisses too?” she asks with a wink, and a second later, Mia can’t save herself from loving kisses being peppered all over her face.

-

“No, don’t worry! It’s fine; Mia, Alex and I will spend the night watching Disney movies and drinking hot chocolate. You two enjoy being ‘Just Married’… “ Chris winks and takes little Mia’s hand, who is already trying to run to his car, her plush carrot tightly grabbed in her other hand.  
“Hey bug, no goodnight kisses for your mommies?” Luisa asks and grins. Mia spins around again, sprinting into Luisa’s open arms, and slings her chubby ones around her neck.  
“Good night, mama,” she whispers in her ear, and eagerly reaches out for Rose to take her in her arms too. “Night, Wose mommy!” she smiles, pressing her cheek to her mom’s.  
She always gets confused with Rose referring to herself as ‘Rose’ in front of her, but Luisa calling her ‘your mommy’; the result is Mia calling her either ‘Wose’, or ‘mommy’, or both.  
“Night night, ladybug baby,” Rose whispers through a kiss to her daughter’s soft cheek. “Be a good girl, okay? And we’ll pick you up tomorrow morning! You don’t have to worry - we’ll be there,” she adds, and Luisa grins at her, for actually being more frightened of that sleepover than their little daughter is.

-

“I love you,” Luisa whispers, lying naked beside Rose in bed that night.  
“I love you too,” Rose answers and kisses Luisa’s cheek. They had enjoyed being freshly married; but now they could feel that their day had started early, when Mia had woken up at 4AM, because she was so excited about her mommies’ ‘mawwiage’.  
Luisa props her head up on her hand, and starts drawing gentle circles on Rose’s chest with her other. She remains at the little two inch scar, below her wife’s left collarbone and carefully traces it. The port had come out almost one year ago, but the small, raised scar is still a reminder of what Rose has been through; what they have been through. Luisa bends her head down and places a faint kiss to it.  
“My scar is getting kisses; that means my wife is being sentimental. Is everything okay, Lu?” Rose asks with a loving smile on her face, as she sits up a little and looks at Luisa.  
“I’m good,” Luisa answers her, but her wet eyes betray her statement. “I am just so unspeakably happy that we got to do this today; that we get to be together. I love you, Rose, and I am so proud of us. We have the most wonderful little girl, and… and I’m so happy that you’re here,” she whispers through tears. Rose reaches up to wipe those tears away with her thumb; she’s still smiling.  
“I’m happy I get to be here too,” she simply says and connects their lips in a kiss again, lining their warm, naked bodies up perfectly, and feeling her own heart do little jumps of joy, upon feeling Luisa’s beating so close to hers.

-

“Lu.”  
She starts shaking Luisa, who’s gracefully passed out beside her. The clock on her nightstand tells her it’s almost 2AM.  
“Luisa!”  
The brunette groans, and squeezes her eyes shut again, when she realizes Rose has switched on the lights. “Whaaaat?” she yawns and tries to open her eyes again, seeing Rose sit in bed, her phone in her hand.  
“Chris called. I woke up just now, but I was too late… I-I’m scared to call him back… Can you…?” Rose asks with a very worried expression on her face, and Luisa finally sits up too, rubs her eyes and puts an arms around her shivering wife’s shoulder.  
“Come on, call him back and put him on speaker,” she presses and drapes their blanket around both their shoulders.

Chris picks up right after the first ring, and Rose wants to jump for her clothes and car keys, before he’s even said anything.  
“Hi lovelies… I am so sorry I’m calling you in the middle of the night, but Mia woke up about an hour ago… she probably had some really bad dream. Alex and I tried everything, but she won’t stop crying for her moms…. Poor cupcake; she’s hiding her face in her plush carrot just now… “  
Rose is already freeing herself from the blanket, grabbing her glasses from the nightstand.  
“I’ll come get her,” she announces quickly, but Luisa shakes her head.  
“Chris, would you get Mia on the phone, so she can hear me?”

A moment later, they can hear heartbreaking sobs and sniffles over the phone, and when Luisa says a gentle “Hi baby”, Mia starts crying out ‘mama’ with no end in sight.  
“Shhh, Mia, you don’t have to be scared, bug. Mommy and I are gonna be there tomorrow morning, when you wake up,” she soothes, but Mia’s cries have turned into hurried hiccups, making her choke and cough after every third sob or so.

Rose is up for real now, pulling on her jeans, while repeatedly telling Luisa, she’s gonna go get their baby now.  
Only when Luisa starts telling Mia her favourite bedtime story, ‘All by myself’, the little girl seems to calm down and listen intently to her mama’s voice on the phone.  
Luisa changes the story a little on the go, making up the part about a sleepover away from home, and after about 15 minutes, she’s almost sure Mia has fallen asleep.

“Luisa?” Chris’ voice comes quietly from the phone after a moment. “Sweetie, I’m gonna send you a picture in a second - you have to see her! She’s between me and Alex on the couch, sucking her thumb, cuddling her carrot, and sleeping like an angel,” he whispers, and Luisa can literally feel him smile over the phone.  
Rose is smiling proudly at her too; she has sat down on the bed again a few minutes ago and crawls closer eagerly, when Luisa ends the call and ‘aww’s’ at the picture of a peacefully slumbering Mia, which Chris had just sent.

-

Luisa yawns again, as Rose calls Chris on the phone, while they’re standing outside his apartment door.

[“No Lu, if we ring the doorbell, Mia might wake up already, and we promised we’d be there when she does.”]

It’s half past 6 in the morning, but Rose had insisted, they’d have to be there before Mia wakes up.  
Luisa knows, Rose hasn’t slept very well; she had turned and tossed even more than usually, and an hour ago, she just couldn’t convince her to stay in bed anymore.  
Alex opens the door for them and greets them with a warm ‘good morning’, telling them Mia’s still sleeping.

While Luisa thankfully agrees to his offer of coffee, Rose tiptoes up the stairs, finding Mia fast asleep, still holding onto her plush carrot, in Chris and Alex’s bed.  
She smiles at the sight and carefully sits down on the mattress beside her daughter, admiring how much she looks like a mini-Luisa with chipmunk-chubby cheeks.  
After a few minutes of having her curls stroked gently, Mia stirs and wakes up slowly, seeing her mommy sit beside her and stroke her head. She smiles sleepily, whispering something vaguely sounding like her usual ‘Wose mommy’, and rolls over, demanding to be held.

Rose descends the stairs with Mia tightly snuggled in her arms, wrapped in a soft blanket, and probably half asleep again.  
The redhead is sporting the brightest, most energetic 7AM smile, compared to the other three sleepy adults awaiting her in the kitchen.  
“Aww,” is basically all she gets from the three, when she sits down on the nearest chair with her daughter, and kisses the top of her head.  
“Admit it babe - you missed her just as much as she missed you,” Luisa jokes with a smile and sits down on the chair beside her wife and daughter. Rose grins and nods at that, before she leans over to give Luisa a quick kiss.  
“But you have to admit, you can’t resist this fluffy ‘ladybug burrito’ either,” she teases afterwards and carefully puts Mia onto Luisa’s lap. The little girl wakes up, smiling a lot more awake already now and hugs her other mom contently.

“So, in two days the adventure starts?” Chris asks now and smiles at the adorable scene in front of him, while handing Rose a cup of coffee and a piece of toast on a plate for Mia.  
“Yes,” Luisa chirps, hugging her girl closer to her chest. “In two days, we’re gonna fly off to the best parisian honeymoon one can imagine!”  
“With a two year old in tow,” Rose adds and grins at Luisa slapping her shoulder and protesting, “Aha, with our amazing two year old!”  
“Mia Pawis!” the little girl blabbers now proudly and eagerly opens her mouth for the piece of toast Rose is holding out for her.  
“Mhm, those two weeks will be all ‘Mia Paris’, ‘Mia Croissant’, Mia Crêpe’, and ‘Mia Crème brûlée,” Rose chuckles, cupping her left hand under Mia’s chin, while feeding her more toast.  
“Mia Eiff Towa!” her daughter beams at them, still chewing her bread. The four adults can’t help but laugh, and Mia is not at all happy about that.  
“It’s Eiffel Tower, bug, but that’s okay. We’re just laughing because you’re being such an unbelievably adorable girl today,” Luisa calms her and kisses some crumbs off Mia’s cheek. 

[Two days later]

“Where. Is. Your. Passport?” Rose hisses nervously, while Luisa still rummages through her bag. “Goddamn Luisa, please don’t tell me you forgot your passport at home? I still travel with a one that is technically fake, but at least I remember to bring it!”

Luisa doesn’t answer, and Rose has to start after Mia, who has seen something worth being checked out from a closer distance.  
“Mia bug, can you please hold your own suitcase for a minute?” Rose holds out the handle of the tiny, ladybug shaped suitcase (a present Mia got for her first birthday; guess who had started to be as extra about ladybugs as about a certain kind of flowers) for her daughter to take it.

The closer they get to the security check, the more fidgety Rose gets, while Luisa still insists, she has definitely packed it.  
Once there’s only one more family in front of them, Rose is wiping her sweaty hands at her jeans frantically, cheeks burning red, and thinking about some way of smuggling Luisa through it without a passport.  
“This would’ve been somewhat easier for me a few years ago. Damn, I used to do stuff like this all the time…” she mumbles, pushing a daydreaming Mia forward a little.  
“You’ve become soft and innocent, babe,” Luisa mocks her, before addressing Mia. “Mijita, let me just get your passport from your suitcase. We put it in the front with your plush carrot, si?”  
Mia nods and lets her mother open the zipper. A second later, Luisa squeals in relief, fishing her daughter’s, and her own passport from between stuffed animals and the unicorn night light, that Mia insisted on taking with her to ‘Pawis’.  
“I got it!” she cheers, just when it’s Rose’s turn to step forward and put her things in a basket. The redhead has just enough time to give Luisa an eye roll and a slight head shake.

-

“Mia, baby, it’s okay,” Luisa soothes her crying daughter, who’s clutching to her chest. “Your ears have shut because the plane is flying very, very high up in the sky. Look, Mia you’ve got to do this,” she tries, and shows her how to make pressure equalization by opening your mouth widely, as if one were yawning.

Mia Alver; aged two, has no idea of pressure equalization, and keeps on crying, until a man behind them starts complaining; loudly.  
Rose’s seat belt clicks, and a second later, she’s bending over the back of her seat.  
“I’m terribly sorry, sir, but she’s not doing it on purpose. We’re trying to make her calm down,” she explains politely, and Luisa is terribly proud of her usually hot-tempered wife.

“I don’t care what you do, as long as the brat shuts up!”

This is what Luisa did not expect, yet Rose’s reaction was predictable.  
“Do you think I’m keen on having my daughter cry for nine hours straight? Respectively Sir, if you want quiet, then get yourself some earplugs or a private jet - I don’t care, but I don’t need your complaining in addition to my daughter’s crying!”

Luisa grins into the kiss she’s pressing to Mia’s head, and the woman beside the angry guy in the seatrow behind them, stops Rose from sitting down again.  
“Try giving her some gummy bears. Chewing on them always helped my kids when they were little and had trouble with low pressure,” she says and hands Rose a small sachet of gummy drops.  
“Thank you,” Rose beams at her, surprised to get a friendly reaction, after what she’d just said to the woman’s seat neighbour.  
After it’s actually worked, and Mia is quietly chewing on gummy bears, she gets up one more time, thanking the woman again.

-

After four hours, Luisa lifts a sleeping Mia onto Rose’s lap, who, also half asleep already, slings her arms around the little girl and rests her cheek on Mia’s head.  
Their sleeping position doesn’t exactly look comfortable, but Luisa doesn’t want to disturb them.  
She herself hadn’t had the best night yesterday, since she’s not particularly fond of flying, and it was Mia’s first time, so the had no chance of knowing how she’d react.  
Luisa had managed to also make Rose feel fussy about it, and the redhead had gone on a run to get a clear head again.  
She had only just started to do sports again, in fact she was finally able to again. It had been a hard and heavy way back to her normal health condition and body confidence.  
Yet merely the fact that she could run again now, made her feel so overjoyed, and Luisa couldn’t help but smile everytime Rose told her how she needed less and less time for the usual distance every time now.

Luisa reaches over and brushes a loose curl from her wife’s forehead, carefully fixing it behind her ear, not wanting to wake her.  
Rose had fallen asleep with her hair still wet last night, and this morning she had just quickly pulled it back into a short, poofy ponytail, and Luisa thought Rose had never looked more beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there!  
> Welcome down here at the ending of Part 1!  
> Part 2 will mostly be them doing all sorts of honeymoon / holiday stuff in Paris, and the hotel they're staying in... will be quite a surprise #spoileralert  
> ^^
> 
> Hope you liked it, and feel fluffy enough after reading this, to share your feelings in form of a comment with me...?  
> Thanks for reading!


	4. Two years cancer-free (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while... but Part 2 is finally here!  
> Hope you enjoy!

Once they landed in Paris, and got off of the airplane, Mia is awake and high on that typical two year-old energy, while her moms feel like they’re gonna break down any second. Rose promptly decides, she’s not in the mood for the Metro and hails a cab to take them to their hotel.  
Luisa gets to hear her speak French for the first time, and she’d have to lie that it isn’t one of the most sexy things she’s ever heard.  
Within a minute, they sit in a nice, cozy cab, the driver is wearing a striped shirt, and Luisa feels like she’s most definitely hallucinating because of the lack of sleep.  
“If he offers us croissants next, please pinch me really hard, because I think I’m dreaming, babe,” she whispers in her wife’s ear, who gives her a bright smile, and a quick kiss on the cheek.  
Mia, after having overcome her earlier energy boost, falls asleep on the roughly thirty minute car ride, and Luisa snuggles into Rose’s side.  
“Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir, after this one is sleeping again?” she purrs into the redhead’s ear, observing that very ear going red in no time, as well as her cheeks.  
“Lu, this is Paris and people are going to understand what you’re saying, and I have no idea what French people think of lesbians,” she whispers. “... but the answers is yes, of course,” she adds and a smile appears on her blushed face.  
“As if we’d have to care about what they think about us! We’ll just tell them ‘fuck off’ in French,” Luisa giggles, and revives Rose’s blush once more.

They reach their hotel, and after paying the driver, Rose lifts a still peacefully slumbering Mia out of the car and carries her into the lobby.  
After they have checked in, they get on the elevator, and when Luisa notices, how far up they’re going; precisely, to the last floor there is; she has a feeling of which hotel this might be.  
The concierge opens the elevator door with a key card, and when the doors slowly open, they find themselves in the middle of a white and golden room, the window opposite the elevator looking directly upon the Eiffel Tower.

Luisa’s mouth hangs slightly open, a sleepy Mia mumbles ‘Eiff Towa’, and Rose gives the concierge a tip and a ‘merci’ before he steps back into the elevator.

“This… this is…”, Luisa starts, even more certain she’s dreaming now.  
“This is the suite I showed you a picture of almost three years ago, yes,” Rose smiles gently and slings her one free arm around her love’s waist. “I couldn’t forget about that view, and I right away booked it last year, when we had our wedding date fixed.”  
“You’re crazy, Rose,” Luisa mumbles, blindly reaching her arm around Rose too.  
“Just enough to want us to have the best honeymoon possible,” she answers, and places a soft kiss on Luisa’s temple, who has finally regained control over her body, and turns to Rose, who’s just putting Mia down on the floor.  
“Thank you,” she smiles, tears burning in the corner of her eyes, and after a crushing hug, she connects their lips in an unforgettable, over the top cheesy, honeymoon kiss, with the Eiffel Tower in the background, and a cute, curly haired, tan toddler grabbing a vase-

“Uh Mia!” Rose manages to blurt out, when she opens her eyes for a second (she loves doing this because Luisa looks so beautiful, even from this close).  
She breaks the kiss, diving forward and saving a probably not exactly cheap, white and golden porcelain vase, with (how convenient) delicate, pink roses inside, from ending up shattered on the white marble floor.

Luisa can’t help but start laughing at Rose sitting on the floor, the vase in her lap, Mia standing right beside her, nervously awaiting to be told off.  
When Rose turns her head to look at her daughter with a judgy glare, she just shyly mumbles, “Look, woses, mommy...” and Luisa completely bursts.  
“This isn’t funny, Lu!” Rose complains, but has to keep herself from smiling. “This is what I predicted for city trips with two and a half year-olds in tow!”

She carefully puts the vase back on the small table it had stood on, before Mia had decided to have a closer look at it.  
“Ouch,” she yammers when she gets up again, and Luisa is there to rub her shoulders.  
“Aww, you’re getting old, Ro, “ she grins. “A few years ago, you would’ve jumped after the vase and done a somersault afterwards.”  
“You try butt-planting on marble floor, Misses Alver!” Rose gives back and dramatically limps off towards the huge, like in ‘super-colossal, gargantuan’ huge, bed, dropping down on it face forward.  
“Bed’s nice, by the way,” she informs Luisa in a muffled voice.

A second later, Mia is on the bed, sitting down on Rose’s back, whispering a quick “Sowwy, mommy,” into her ear, while petting Rose’s hair, and getting up again afterwards, to test the bed for suspension.  
“Mia.”  
The jumping movements don’t end.  
“Mia,” Rose warns, and looks up at her hyped kid, jumping on the fluffy mattress.  
“B-but mo-ommy,” Mia starts, not stopping to jump up and down, until Rose shoots her a very definite glare.  
“Look! Mia no shoes in bed… “ Mia tries to make up for it, stretching her bare feet out for Rose to see.  
“Bug, this isn’t our home, okay? So, we have to be very careful with all the things in her, do you understand?” Rose explains to her, pressing a kiss to one of her daughter’s tiny, bare feet, before pulling her into her lap. “Can you do that, bug? Be very, very careful with all the pretty things in here?”  
Mia nods seriously and cuddles into Rose a little more, before a flash makes her look to her other mom.  
“First honeymoon picture of my two loves - done,” Luisa smiles and joins them on the bed.

-

Rose smiles so hard, it almost hurts the next day, when she walks a few steps behind Luisa, who carries Mia on her shoulders.  
She had taken at least ten pictures of them already.

They’d been walking the streets all morning, and Mia had gotten tired somewhere close to Place de la Concorde.  
Now all of them actually just needed a nice café to sit down for awhile, have an ice cold drink, and Rose wouldn’t object to some shade for a change as well.  
She was wearing a pretty, beige sunhat and a blue, flower patterned dress that covered her shoulders, but, as disappointing as it was, she could feel the skin of her feet in those delicate sandals starting to burn a little, and upon closer inspection, she could tell she definitely had her first sunburn of the season.  
As long as it stayed with just her feet, it would be okay though.

Luisa felt as content as she hadn’t in a very long time.  
This was her honeymoon, she loved Paris just as much as Rose had promised she would, she was here with both her loves, one of them bobbing up and down on her shoulders right now, and she wasn’t constantly worrying about her wife anymore either.

Rose had been doing really well all year; she didn’t feel fragile anymore under Luisa’s touch, she hadn’t had a nap in a long time, but rather so much excess energy, Luisa wondered, if she was trying to catch up on all the things she had missed out on while she was sick.  
When Mia had caught a nasty cold last December, Rose, for the first time, didn’t come down with it too literally the following day (although she had ran around the house in panic trying to find a leftover surgical mask and put it on voluntarily).  
She was okay again, she felt like Rose again, she smelled like Rose again (and not like a walking disinfectant), and she acted like Rose again.  
Well, she had changed a lot actually… she seemed happier than ever before, and, surprisingly, had her temper better under control than before, or during cancer, and she had mostly given up on straightening her hair; lots of change, you see.

“Babe, what do you think about that place over there?”  
Luisa points to an elegant looking café on their left hand side.

-

They have lemonade (in the shade lol) and Mia falls asleep on Rose’s lap.  
“It’s just not ideal…” Rose ponders, “She’s still too little for city trips.”  
“She’s enjoying it, babe,” Luisa tells her, and grabs Rose’s hand. “She’s two, and she will most likely not remember this trip when she’s older, but right now, she’s here with her moms and getting too many sweets. How could she not enjoy all that?”  
Rose looks up at her and grins. “Maybe we should consider taking her to Disneyland after all?”  
Luisa rolls her eyes and makes a noise of disagreement. “No, no, no. We talked about it. Our baby is going to Disney World for her first time, if anywhere. And she really needs to be a little older for that, babe!”

They pay and walk the short distance to the big square in front of the Louvre, where Mia excitedly runs toward the glass pyramid.  
“Be careful, bug!” Rose yells after her, but Luisa takes her hand, squeezes it reassuringly, and walks over to where Mia is waiting.

“You wanna go in, right?” she asks Rose, who stares down longingly into the hall below the glass.  
Rose gives a short nod and a smiling “But it’s okay. We can’t have a look at everything in there anyways, or we would have to extend our stay.”  
“We can have a look at some of the art in there at least,” Luisa announces and drags her girls to the entrance.

-

“Roooose, where are you going? The Mona Lisa is in the direction the mob is headed!”

Rose chuckles and leads the way away from where the, according to Rose, “Small, nondescript, if one has no idea of painting techniques uninteresting masterpiece by DaVinci”, and towards one of the less crowded corridors.  
“We’re skipping La Joconde, she’s even less impressive in real life than on TV, and it’s a shame, how far away they keep everyone. That painting would only be interesting, if one were allowed to examine the layerings of paint, but anyways, I want to see ‘La Liberté guidant le peuple’!”  
Luisa joggs after her wife, picking Mia up in walking by, as the little girl stops and stares at a big, marble statue of a naked woman.  
“And now for normal people to understand?” she breathes, once she catches up to Rose.  
“Liberty leading the people by Eugène Delacroix. In all the times, I’ve been to Paris, I never managed to see it, since it was moved to another museum for a while blabla, well, it’s back here now, and that’s my chance! Our chance!”

“Your chance, babe, all yours,” Luisa laughs. “How did you art freak not end up working at a museum in the first place?”  
Rose looks at her, and her steps slow down a little.  
There’s this glint of melancholy in her eyes, if not a little sadness and regret.  
But only for the duration of the blink of an eye.  
“Wasn’t meant to be.”  
“But it could’ve,” Luisa insists, “You can still try to-”  
Rose cuts her off.  
“And I wouldn’t have met you, if Elena had let me go to art school, so, not worth it!”  
That’s where the conversation ends, as they find themselves standing in front of a huge oil painting. Mia yawns, and Rose is gone to some other sphere, while Luisa watches them both with a warm smile.

-

“Mama, Mia want ‘oissant!”

The next morning, they decide to not have breakfast in their suite, as they did the previous day, but go to a café they had walked by yesterday.  
There’s a huge buffet inside, since it’s Saturday, and they managed to get a nice table outside in the sun.

While Rose is out there, looking after their stuff, Luisa has gone inside with Mia to fill their plates.

“First, we’re gonna have some yoghurt and fruit, mijita. You can have your chocolate croissant afterwards,” Luisa tells her, while she’s piling raspberries, bananas, and blueberries onto Mia’s bowl.  
The two year old had had too many sweets during the last few days, starting with their wedding cake, moving on to the hot chocolate at Chris’s house, the gummy bears on the plane, and now nothing but croissants, pain au chocolats, éclairés, and crêpes since they had landed in Paris.  
Just like Rose had predicted it, and the worst thing was, she was the one stuffing their toddler with all that stuff now, smiling the brightest of smiles, when Mia was left speechless, high on sugar, and covered in chocolate, chewing on some parisian speciality one just couldn’t leave without having tasted (qtd. Rose Alver née Ruvelle ad Paris, France).  
Last night, they couldn’t seem to make her fall asleep.  
All three of them were still kinda jetlagged anyways, and Mia had been running around their suite, almost driving both Rose and Luisa crazy.  
The only thing that had helped in the end, was Luisa grabbing their little whirlwind of a daughter and getting her into a nice, warm bubble bath.  
Mia’s eyes had been dropping already, when Luisa had put her into her pyjamas, and by the time she put her down beside Rose, who had drifted off, still wearing nothing but one of the hotel’s pink bathrobes that clashed so horribly with her hair, Mia was fast asleep too.  
Luisa smiled at her two girls, slumbering peacefully beside each other, Mia’s thumb in her mouth, and Rose taking up almost all the space on the actually big enough bed.

It had taken one hour of cuddles, lots of thumb sucking, and Rose playing horsey, in order to make their little grump get out of bed and motivated for the day this morning.

“But then ‘oissant,” Mia insists now, as Luisa places the bowl of yoghurt in front of her, while Rose fixes the bib around her neck to prevent stains on her pretty shirt.  
“Later you can have your croissant, Mia, yes,” Luisa sighs, and gestures Rose to go and get herself some breakfast, which she does after pressing a big smack on Mia’s cheek.

Luisa doesn’t need to turn around, to tell Rose is coming back, and she also doesn’t necessarily have to see her plate; she can tell the redhead is approaching the table again, when Mia’s eyes go big, her lips split into a huge grin, and she whispers something like “many ‘oissants”.

When Rose plops down in the chair beside her wife, she’s grinning too, and Luisa is staring at that plate, shaking her head.  
“What happened to your healthy breakfast routine, Misses Alver?”  
“France doesn’t do healthy breakfast, and this is our honeymoon. Even the name’s sweet, so we might as well live up to it, don’t you agree, Misses Alver?” Rose whispers sweetly into her ear, before giving her an even sweeter kiss, tasting of love, marriage, and morning coffee.

They are a little distracted for a moment, until there’s that tell-tale noise of someone biting into flaky pastry.  
Mia’s moms open their eyes again, to see their two and a half year-old toddler dumping a chocolate croissant in her yogurt bowl in order to hide it, after apparently having reached across the table, dragged it off of Rose’s plate, and bitten it at least once.  
Mia looks back at them, her nostrils flaring a bit, her heart probably beating about twice as fast as normal, but considering her poker face, she’s sure nobody will notice the theft.  
Luisa is immediately reminded of Rose being able to lie very well to anybody except her, and how much Mia looks like her right now (genetics and biology be damned).  
Rose beside her, has covered her mouth with her hand, to not burst out in laughter.

Hmm, I think there’s one croissant missing from mommy’s plate now… Do you know where it went, Mia?” Luisa asks, after getting herself together again.  
Mia stares at Luisa, unmoving, and answers with a very definite “No”.  
“Well, must have magically flown away then… Don’t you want to finish your yoghurt, bug?”  
Mia nods at that, still looking very focused, and carefully dips the spoon into her bowl again, scoops up some yoghurt, and brings it to her mouth; all that in slow-motion and without breaking eye-contact with Luisa.

The next time she brings the spoon down, it touches the croissant and Mia flinches a little at the crispy sound.

“Alright Mia, let’s get that croissant out of your bowl, before it’s completely soggy, you little pastry thief,” Luisa finally laughs, and Mia looks surprised and disappointed, when her hidden treasure is taken away from her.  
“Mama told you, you can have one a little later, Mia,“ Rose joins in, and she doesn’t look amused anymore. Luisa does have an idea why.  
“It’s not okay to just take something without asking, hiding it, and lying about it, you hear me? Never do that again.”

Luisa puts a calming hand on Rose’s arm. “It’s okay, Ro. Don’t interpret all the worst into this now.”  
Rose looks stricken, her eyebrows are furrowed, and Luisa can almost see the wheels churning in her head.

-

Rose is quiet for the rest of the morning, refuses lunch later, and when she ignores Mia hugging her legs and blabbering “Wose mooooommy” for the third time, the little girl suddenly starts crying, being very well able to sense something is off.  
Rose looks down at her, and then at Luisa, obviously unsure of what to do now, or maybe just not wanting to deal with it.

Luisa gives her a few more seconds, to do something; anything.  
Motherly instincts should be working 24/7, right?

But Rose just stands there, crying Mia at her feet, and Luisa gives her an angry glare, before picking their girl up.  
She walks a few steps ahead of Rose, distracting Mia by pointing to pretty buildings and looking into shop windows with her.  
All while Rose silently follows them.

By the time the sun is slowly setting, Mia is fast asleep in Luisa’s arms, and when Rose quietly asks, if she wants to have dinner somewhere, Luisa is the one to very definitely refuse.

They return to the hotel quietly, the silent elevator ride seems never ending, and Luisa honestly can’t remember the last time they’d had a fight.  
When the ‘pling’ finally indicates they have reaches the highest floor, and the doors open a second later, she strides towards the bedroom and puts her sleeping daughter down on the covers.  
“I’m gonna take a shower,” she declares, passing a small looking Rose in the hallway. “Maybe just make sure she doesn’t fall out of bed. Hope you can manage.”

 

When Luisa emerges from the bathroom, roughly 20 minutes later, she can hear Mia crying again.  
Anger rising in her stomach, she approaches the bedroom, but just when she wants to push open the door and yell at Rose, she can hear her talking to Mia.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to cry, Mia,” Rose soothes a hiccuping Mia, and Luisa decides to wait and hear how she’s handling the situation.  
“I just don’t want you to lie to mama, or me, or anyone, okay? Lying is something really, really bad, and believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”  
There’s the noise of a tiny nose being blown and a kiss being pressed somewhere on soft baby skin.  
“You know, bug, a long time ago, before you were born, I met your mama, and guess what, I lied to her a few times… actually, a lot of times…” Rose continues, and Luisa’s anger has vaporized into tears almost escaping her eyes.  
“When your mama found out I had been lying to her, she was incredibly sad, and she didn’t trust me anymore, she wouldn’t even believe me, when I told her something true, and she probably even stopped loving me for a while, Mia. It’s always better to tell the truth, because lying only hurts everyone, including yourself, do you understand that, bug?”

Mia’s answer is intelligible from Luisa’s spot, but she’s glad, she didn’t interrupt.  
She gives them another minute, before entering, and finding Mia safely snuggled against her mom’s chest, thumb sucking and lids dropping.  
Rose has her eyes closed too, keeping her as close as she can, stroking one hand over her dark hair.  
Luisa doesn’t say anything; it feels wrong to disturb that special mother-daughter moment with words, so she just lies down behind her wife, puts her arms around her and also presses as close as she can.  
Rose doesn’t say anything either, but she puts her own arm over Luisa’s holding her and grabs it real tight, locking herself in that position, the way she does when she’s had a nightmare, and Luisa knows she doesn’t want to talk about it.  
They lay there silently for a while, in their comfortable family-spooning-sandwich-position, until Mia’s even breathing tells Rose and Luisa she’s fallen asleep.

“I’m sorry,” Rose mumbles quietly, careful not to disturb their sleeping baby.

“I love you,” Luisa whispers into her ear, giving her words more meaning by following them up with a kiss to Rose’s neck. “She’ll most likely lie to us again someday, babe… when she’s a teen… probably even sooner, but that doesn’t mean she will-”  
“-become a bad person, like I used to be?” Rose finishes for her, and Luisa can tell, she needs that hug to be even tighter now.  
“What if I subconsciously suggest her things that are going to influence her to… to lie for example?”  
Luisa sits up a little, bends over her wife, who’s still clutching their little girl, as if she’d disappear, if she let go, and presses a gentle kiss to her cheek.  
“Stop. You’re doing nothing like that. I just don’t like it when you are angry with her in that cold, ‘I am just going to pretend you don’t exist’ kind of way, babe,” Luisa whispers. “She’s a toddler, and she doesn’t necessarily understand what’s okay to do and what not.”

-

Mia ascends Montmartre on her mommy’s shoulders on the evening of their last day in Paris.  
She’s playing with Rose’s hair, probably creating tons of critical tangles, but she also keeps the sun away from, by now, heavily burnt shoulders.

“Are you okay up there, bug?” Rose asks her, starting to feel a little out of breath from the stair climbing. Not as out of breath as Luisa, who’s a few steps behind though.  
There’s no answer from Mia, but her other mom laughs.  
“Mijita, mommy can’t see you nodding when you’re on her shoulders!”

They reach the top just when the sky is slowly turning orange, and Luisa can tell, Rose, if she could, wouldn’t leave Paris already again tomorrow.  
They sit down on the staircase in front of the church, watching the city’s red roofs below them being dipped into a warm gloom from the slowly sinking sun, and Mia watches the pigeons jumping up and down the stone steps instead, but with no less fascination.

“You don’t want to leave yet,” Luisa starts, “Am I right?”  
Rose nods and turns to face her.  
“I’d like to stay a little longer, yes. We haven’t done half the things I wanted to, but it’s alright. Being back home will feel good too, and Paris hasn’t seen me - us for the last time anyways.”

Luisa drapes her arm around Rose’s shoulder, admiring the ring on her own finger and its twin on a freckled hand that comes up to cup her cheek.  
Soft lips meet midway, and Mia turns around to her mommies and smiles at them, even though their eyes are closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rose is such a sap.  
> That's what she is, and nobody will convince me otherwise.  
> And she's a sucker for Paris, and Luisa is a sucker for Rose.
> 
> (Now, @JTV, is that this hard to understand? No, right, now go and do your duty in season five. I am getting anxious, as filming started today)
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading! Tell me what you think?  
> xx


	5. Three years cancer-free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ah well... it's been a while...
> 
> I have somewhat neglected this multi-chapter for a while now because ever since I wrote this story last March I have hated this particular chapter...
> 
> It kinda feels cathartic to just post it now while holding a hand in front of my eyes basically (aka just not reading over it ever again ,and be done with it, and go on!)
> 
> So yeah sorry...

“Mommies, look!” Mia yells from the top of the climbing tower, when she’s just about to go down the biggest slide.  
Rose turns around to her and almost has a heart attack; Mia had never done this all alone, without somebody waiting at the end to catch her.  
(More like Rose has never let Mia do this on her own)  
“Mia wait!” she yells, already running over to the end of the big yellow slide. She almost bumps into another woman standing beside the climbing tower and gets there just in time to catch her loudly giggling three year-old daughter.  
Luisa is still sitting on the bench, where Rose had also been sitting; that is, until about 4 seconds ago. She is laughing at her wife now, who’s apparently just having a serious talk with their daughter; ‘We need to be very careful, because playgrounds are very dangerous, Mia’, or something like that again, she guesses. Rose hadn’t really got less overprotective over the last year, while Mia on the other hand, had become a lot more daring.

“But Wose, mama said I can go on the swings later,” Mia whines now, absentmindedly playing with the necklace around Rose’s neck. Luisa had secretly bought it in Paris and given it to Rose on their last day there; it was a simple golden necklace with a small, golden ‘M’ pendant and an even smaller golden rose; Rose most of the time doesn’t even take it off over night.  
“You can go on the swings, darling, but I’m coming with you, because there’s this little dick up there, who I saw pushing a girl earlier-” Rose explains, but Luisa interrupts her with a puzzled expression.  
“Rose!” she shouts. “No words like this in front of Mia! We talked about it!”  
Her wife looks at her guiltily, but is kinda trying not to grin.

It was obvious to anyone watching, the redheaded woman always running after that dark haired, tan toddler like a scared chicken, loved her more than anything, but the trained eye would also see that this doesn’t really count for any other random child.  
Rose couldn’t help herself sometimes; uttering a disgusted ‘Yuk’ or making gagging noises, when any other kid had food, or snot, or dirt in their face; or shoving (especially little boys) out of the way if they tried to go first, while Mia had been the next in the row; telling other moms/dads their kids should be taught manners; and being very straightforward about not letting any other kid touch Mia’s personal playthings.  
Luisa has made a lot of effort in the past to prevent parent-playground-wars, which Rose was not exactly afraid to start.  
Last year, her wife had managed, to be called a ‘gay witch’ by some tattooed, motorcycle daddy. Rose had turned around again at that, and honestly, Luisa still thanks god for Mia falling down three steps and bruising her knees and elbow in that moment, because her sudden crying kept Rose from whatever she was going to do.  
It was kind of fascinating actually, how quickly Rose’s moods could change, when Mia did only as much as smile (or cry).  
Over the course of the last year, they had also found out Rose was a real talent at goodnight stories, since she made good use of her slightly dramatic, exaggerating nature, when reading out loud to their daughter; which Mia loved endlessly. She prefered Rose reading to her by now, while she wanted Luisa for any boo-boos, because her other mommy would get a tick too panicky, upon seeing blood on her baby.

“Sorry,” Rose says now. “But Mia didn’t even hear that, right bug?” she winks and tickles the little girl’s neck.  
They decide to move their stuff up to the empty bench beside the swings, so they can have an eye on Mia.  
Their little one is on the swing right now, eyes wide, mouth open in a silent, excited scream. Luisa has taken over from Rose, who had not been pushing hard enough for Mia’s taste.  
When Mia’s had enough, Luisa lifts her out of the seat again and watches her toddle off towards the sandbox.  
“She’s getting so big,” Rose acknowledges with a sigh swinging in her tone.  
“Yes, she is,” Luisa answers and sits down beside her wife, taking her hand. “We should try teaching her how to ride a bike this summer, don’t you think?” she adds, watching a mother run after a little blonde girl on her pink bicycle.  
“You are going to teach her,” Rose grins. “I’m way too impatient with her.. and scared she’ll fall!”  
Luisa nudges her side and pecks her on the cheek. “You have to learn to let go sometimes, babe; just a little bit; our girl is gonna fall once in a while, because that’s the way life goes…”

Literally a minute later, Mia trudges back to where her moms are sitting on the bench. She’s covered in sand all the way from her head to her shoes; her blue dungaree has come off her shoulder on one side; and her right pigtail is disheveled because she’s lost the hair tie. Her lower lip trembles, when she wants to start talking, but when a noise of surprise escapes Luisa’s mouth, she can’t help but cry.  
Both her mothers’ hands brush off as much sand as they can, before Mia finds herself sitting between them on the bench, being asked what has happened.  
“That boy there,” she hiccups and points to a dark haired boy, who’s about her age. “He destwoyed my Faiwy Castle… And-and he pushed me into the sand, when I said that he’s not nice!”  
Mia is on Rose’s arm before she can even process, and Luisa is honestly stunned there’s no steam coming from her wife’s ears. She doesn’t even have to say it out loud to Luisa; that boy is the little ‘dick’ (pardon me) from earlier.

“Hey you,” Rose shouts to the small, dark haired kid in the dirty dinosaur shirt. “Come here, please.”  
The boy grins, then he yells a confident ‘no’, and after showing Rose his tongue, he runs off towards the climbing tower. Rose is following suit, of course, Mia bobbing up and down in her arms as she strides after this wicked little kid. It doesn’t really make it better, he looks a little like some baby-Rafael (to Rose at least).  
When she turns around the corner behind the tower, she sees the still grinning boy standing beside a huge, tattooed man. Motorcycle guy.

“Ah damn, witch mom again,” he laughs and makes a step towards Rose, his boy following suit, showing her his tongue once more. Big, scary tattoo guy maybe thought Rose would step back, but what did he know honestly.  
“Mommy, no fighting,” is all Mia whispers, before hiding her face in Rose’s shirt, so she doesn’t have to see this big man coming closer; she isn’t used to men… hetero men, to be precise.  
“Your son still doesn’t know how to behave; not that I’m wondering… “ she eyes him with barely hidden disgust. “I want him to apologize to my daughter.”  
“Pff, then make him, witch,” he answers, taking his son’s hand and dragging him to the other side of the playground.  
Luisa is behind Rose a moment later, stopping her from following them yet again.  
“Ro, come on, it’s pointless!”

An hour later, Rose is still sulking for not being allowed to go after lil dick and his big dick dad, but Luisa and Mia are slowly succeeding in trying to distract her. Mia is just feeding Rose another grape, when the little dark haired boy appears out of nowhere, wiggling Mia’s missing ‘Pwincess hair tie’ in front of her face. “Yours? Come and get it!” he laughs and runs off.

Mia, having apparently inherited more of Rose’s temper than her mothers thought, literally jumps off the bench and starts after the boy without a second thought.  
She’s not fast enough though, because she comes back to Luisa, who has gone after her this time, just a minute later.  
“He’s hiding,” she states angrily and stomps her foot into the ground.  
Luisa and her walk back to their bench, but Rose isn’t there anymore.

-

The boy jumps out of the little wooden treehouse that some older kids built into an old tree beside the playground; and finds himself standing in front of Mia’s mom.  
He wants to run, but she grabs him at the collar of his shirt.  
“Alright little man, let’s talk, shall we?” she whispers, knowing nobody can see them from the playground. “First, you give me the hair tie.”  
He makes a sulky face, but gives it to Rose.  
“Great. And now I’m gonna tell you something very important, so you better listen closely.”

He tries very hard to not look the least bit frightened, but Rose can (figuratively) smell his fear already, and she honestly loves it. “So, you heard your dad call me a witch, right?” she asks him, still keeping him tightly in her grip. “I’m afraid he’s right.”  
“Witches are just fairytales! They don’t exist.” he counters with a nervous laugh, not looking Rose in the eyes.  
“Oh well, every woman with red hair is a witch, but most of us dye it brown, or blonde, or black. Men like your dad used to hunt and kill us, because they were so very scared of us.”  
He looks really uncomfortable now, but Rose isn’t done by far.  
“Now it’s the other way round; now we hunt men like your dad, and every one of our prisoners wears a ring like this.” She shows him her wedding ring; and of course she remembers his dad didn’t wear one. “Well, since all those who are not under our spell yet, are so scared of us, they tell their children we don’t exist. Go back to your daddy now, and have a look at the people’s hands that you pass by. Every woman, who’s wearing a ring is a witch, and every man wearing it, is some witch’s slave. Oh, and if you ask your dad if witches are real, he will tell you they are not; tell him they are, and he will laugh at you. But don’t you dare tell him I told you the truth, because I will know you did, and I will find you. Sometimes, I eat little brats like you for desert.” (She just had to say this; she’s Rose and she’s too extra for this world)  
The boy’s face is almost green now, and Rose finishes her monologue by making him look into her heavy blue eyes; and when she suddenly lets go of his shirt, he runs as fast as his short legs can carry him.

-

Luisa spots the dark haired boy again after a while. He’s stumbling across the playground, watching everyone with big, terrified eyes. When a woman asks him a question; probably if he’s okay; he starts running to where his dad is sat and staring into his phone.  
Rose comes strolling back to their bench now, whistling her favourite tune, looking as innocent as a redheaded, tall angel in blue jeans and floral shirt.

“What did you do?” Luisa inquiries dryly. Rose hands Mia her bobble and sits down again.  
“I got her hair tie back,” she explains the obvious and plops a grape into her mouth.  
“Ro-ose,” Luisa warns her with a raised eyebrow. “What. did. you. do?”  
Rose grins, eating another grape, before she lifts Mia onto her lap and does her second pigtail again.  
“I’m just a really good storyteller, aren’t I, bug?” she chuckles and gently fixes the hair tie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah no, some parts in it are actually so Rose it is worth a laugh but overall I just coulda done better.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> It's really important to me to know what you guys think!  
> Please consider leaving a comment and kudos if you liked it!
> 
> I'm as always open for suggestions, since I'm still adding new scenes to the version Belle got for her birthday!  
> xx Cate


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